Every week, we get a few car photographs in our Shooting Challenges. I get it. You like cars. So…
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Winner: It's The Paint Job

One of my buddies at work is really into cars, and by really I mean he practically washes his car every two days. Being an amateur photographer I'm always on the look out for new ways to take pictures and after seeing this photo challenge I suggested going out for a photoshoot and attempting something called light painting. For those unfamiliar with light painting it's the process of using a light source such as a flashlight and a long exposure to "paint" your image. To capture the image we used a LED flash light and ran around the car like chickens with their heads cut off painting the surface of the car during the duration of the shutter speed. After waiting around for people and cars to come and go and before getting yelled at by a police officer that we were illegally parked we were able to get a this shot. Canon 5d mkii, Canon EF 16-35mm at 16mm, f4.5, 30 sec, ISO-100
- Brad Sasaki

Toy Car

Hey my rental car is stuck in the middle of the desert. Let me take a picture of it. As I was driving to Phoenix Arizona to catch my flight back home to Michigan I saw a sign for the Kofa National Wildlife Reserve. I had some extra time to kill so I decided to take a quick detour. A few miles down the road there was an information area. I got out, took a few pictures, and checked out the information board. There was a map. It looked like I could take a few of these roads and end up 20 miles down the highway that I had just been on. I would have to take a few trails that said "four wheel drive recommended" but my rental car had four wheel drive so I was good to go. It headed down the road and went on the trail. It was beautiful and I was having a great time. The trail got a little rougher but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Then I got stuck. I tried giving it more gas but I was just smoking the tires. I was afraid of blowing a tire so I got out, assessed the situation, and took this picture. I let a little air out of the tires to get more traction. Crap! That didn't work. I could let some more out but then I would loose ground clearance. I haven't had cell reception in a while so I can't call for help. What am I going to do? I have a bottle of water and a granola bar. My running shoes are in my suitcase. Maybe I should go run for help. But it's 100 degrees and I could get dehydrated fast. I have to get unstuck. I finally grabbed some rocks and jammed them under the wheels. It worked! I was moving again! After a few more stressful hours of off-roading I finally made it back to the highway and I was on my way to Phoenix again. Equipment: iPhone 4S. Post Production: I played around with a few apps and ended up liking the tilt-shift effect in the Snapseed app the best. It seemed to bring the vehicle into the spot light and made the rest of the picture a blur. Which was exactly how I was feeling at the time.
- David Hullinger

Matte Black Mustang

These photos came from one of my most recent photos shoots with this gorgeous Matte Black wrapped Mustang. The car was originally the blue you see in the pin stripes but the wrap was put on around it and the blue was kept as accents and it flows perfectly! Its the details that count! Settings: ISO 100, 50mm, f/ 2.8, 1/20 sec, Tripod mounted
- Chris Petruccio

Full Moon Z

Photo taken of my brother in laws 07 350z taken in Everett Washington. There was a full moon out and thought it would be cool to include it in my shot. Canon T3i, F/2 4 second Exposure, ISO 100, Manual Exposure.
- Chris Nelson

Open Road Acura

I rarely work with natural light since I work fulltime indoors until it gets dark. For the challenge I wanted to try something new. The background was shot at 1/160th and f/9 but the car itself is actually an isolated HDR image. My plan with the image was to suggest movement so I left it on the road, my favorite thing to do with my TL-S after all is to drive on mountain roads. The only edits I've done is make the road black instead of grey and changed the color balance to suggest sunset into the lighting environment. I used my Canon 7D and 17-40L lens at 100ISO to photograph my personal 2008 Acura TL Type-S.
- Philip Tieu

Porsche 904

My buddy was going to his last track event of the year. It wasn't an actual race, but he was driving his 2011 Porsche Cayman S, and I tagged along to take some shots of his car, and some of the others. There were plenty of Corvettes. I counted 6 Z06s, 4 Porsche 911 GT3s, and 4 Lotus Exiges to name a few.

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The one that really caught my eye from the beginning was the Porsche 904 - 1964. It just screamed "take my picture" with those smooth headlights and sharp curves. I took a few in color and a few in high contrast B&W. My buddy had a rough day losing it into the grass on his 3rd lap of the day (no damage to the car - just his ego), but it was a lot of fun seeing these beauties tearing around the track. I got a lot more pictures from the day that I really enjoy, but this was framed so well, I had to use it. The color of the car was a blueish gray. It was mostly a cloudy day, but the car really popped when using B&W.

There was no post-editing of this photo. I was using a Sony a55 with a Sony 18-70mm lens - ISO 400. I took 3 shots each zoomed successively closer than the next - this was the closest - and in my opinion the best. I hope you enjoy looking as much as I did taking it!
- Doug Villella

Park Ranger

So I go to Calero Resevoir to take a shot of my jeep in an open space. I found a good spot, parked and started shooting. Not two minutes pass when the Park Ranger pulled up right beside me asking if everything's ok. I told him what I was doing...and then sheepishly said that taking a photo of HIS car would be awesome. I thought he would just send me off on my merry way, but instead he asked me if I'd prefer the car with the lights on or off :)) Ha ha...here's one of the shots. Canon T2i 36mm F/6.3 with a little boost in iPhoto.
- Georgina Lawrence

Cars & Concrete

The lot where this happened is actually part of a soon to be decommissioned airport, right now all they have it is for training flights. Eventually this parking lot will get demolished and so will the runway thats a dozen meters away. I wanted to get in a few more shoots while I still could and I love using this ramp for anything and everyone. Cars or bikes heck even people, the entire building lends itself to such great shots. The camera that was used was a Canon 60D, lens was a normal 18-135mm f/4.5-5.6. ISO was 800 and shutter speed was 1/100.
- Anitesh Jaswal

Sponsored

Fantastic entries, car buffs. I love not just the variety of styles, but the variety of vehicles you dug up as your subjects. Taking the bus has never looked less enticing. See the full gallery below and the wallpapers on flickr.